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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611028">Waning Storm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil'>greygerbil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Meeting Own Child for the First Time, Mpreg, Reunions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:41:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,366</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At twenty-one years old, when the war is over, Stannis is Master of Ships, Lord of Dragonstone, and brother to the king of Westeros. However, his husband and child are lost somewhere across the Narrow Sea or, he fears, at the bottom of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stannis Baratheon/Davos Seaworth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rare Pairs Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Waning Storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts">The_Plaid_Slytherin</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>To say that the pregnancy of his husband and the birth of their first child – if it had even happened – had not gone as Stannis had imagined would be an understatement.</p><p>The beginning of their marriage had been unusual, too, but that Stannis had not complained too loudly about. Because Robert had wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident during his young kingship that choosing the wrong of many offered husbands and wives for Stannis may well have caused, he’d instructed Stannis and Davos to tell people that they had insisted on a marriage of love and in fact had had one in secret as early as right after the siege of Storm’s End. Stannis didn’t think Robert had noticed how fond he was of Davos and chosen his onion knight simply because he was the only person close enough to Stannis to have this story make half a bit of sense.</p><p>However, it was true Stannis had been soft on Davos since he had crept into their family residence, happy not just for the food, but soon enough for his sound advice and conversation, which they had shared even while still shut up in the castle. Others had called Davos plain, but Stannis had never been able to see, that, either, drawn by his lithe but robust build and warm smile. Somehow, Stannis also seemed to have managed to make Davos like him, a rare feat for him which he tried not to undervalue by fretting whether his husband was also in love.</p><p>Because of the lie that they were already married, they had gotten smaller festivities than the brother of the king should have, but Stannis had been too nervous thinking about the bedding to complain. Unlike him, Davos had not come to their marriage a virgin and he’d showed Stannis enough to make him look eagerly forward to every night after. Just a few short days later his brother’s orders had taken Stannis from Davos, though, leading him to Dragonstone, while Davos was sent to the Free Cities to speak to several of Varys’ contacts about Targaryen bannermen who had slipped away.</p><p>Five months later, when Stannis still stewed over Robert’s decision to take his rights to Storm’s End and its lands away from him and settle him with Dragonstone instead, a letter arrived at court. It was written by one of Varys’ closer friends in Essos and informed them that Davos, who had rested at his estate for a few days before continuing onwards, wanted his lord husband to know he was with child.</p><p>Stannis had been near to setting sail the day the letter landed on his desk, but he had just been named the Master of Ships and reminded by Jon Arryn that he didn’t even know which city Davos was currently in. It would have been a wild chase across a country he had never set foot in. Besides that, winter was drawing close and the sea was especially treacherous when the seasons changed. It made no sense to take an unnecessary risk when Davos hadn’t indicated there was any reason he wouldn’t eventually return.</p><p>However, oncoming winter didn’t just cut off the travel routes in one direction, but slowed the arrival of any other letters Davos might have sent, too. There was one more brief message that arrived, dictated by Davos to a scribe which told that he was going to find a midwife to help him birth the child before returning to King’s Landing. At the time of writing, he was about eight months into his pregnancy and didn’t want to set sail for fear of being alone on the sea if the child should come into the world too early.</p><p>Then the snow storms hit and if Davos had found anyone else to write for him, perhaps the letter had sunken to the bottom of the sea, or perhaps Davos and the child had, just like Stannis’ parents. If his husband had died in childbirth or on the waves, Stannis wondered how he would ever know with certainty.</p><p>Even coaxing a kingdom reeling from a devastating war towards stability provided hardly enough distraction to stop Stannis counting the days and losing hope with each one that passed. At first, he knew he was unreasonable: Davos may have had the child already, but he could not simply wish himself to King’s Landing with a moment’s thought. Then, Stannis reminded himself that he might need some rest after the birth if it had been difficult. Further, the journey would be slow now with the storms if Davos tried to be careful, which he would be with an infant in his arms. After that, however, the days dragged on beyond what Stannis had figured might make sense and he tried and failed not to think of all the ills that could have befallen Davos and their child.</p><p>Working was difficult like this. He would often sit over ledgers and reports until deep into the night only to catch up on the tasks hadn’t managed to finish during the day. On one such long evening, around midnight, there was a knock on his door. Stannis frowned at it, ready to berate whoever thought to disturb him in a rare moment of focus, even as he barked a command for them to enter.</p><p>The door opened to reveal Davos, wind-blown and rain-damp. His beard had grown long and his hair was held in a lose braid. In his arms laid a thick bundle of cloth.</p><p>Stannis just managed not to spill his ink all over the paper in front of him as he jumped to his feet, legs knocking painfully against the table. Davos smiled, closing the door behind himself.</p><p>“Good evening, my lord,” he said.</p><p>Though Stannis had a hundred questions for him, Davos stepped up close and got on his toes to press their mouths together and they were all gone for the moment. Stannis kissed him hungrily, but the hug he gave was careful, as he was very aware of the lump between them.</p><p>Davos took a slow step back, his eyes not leaving Stannis’ face. “I don’t know if my letters ever reached you, but I must be late regardless. I had to change routes a dozen times because of the weather and eventually could only cross the sea down south towards Dorne.”</p><p>“Don’t apologise. It would have been stupid to rush,” Stannis said sternly, trying to project an air of authority that hid how many nights he had laid awake or how often he had gone down to the harbour, foolishly hoping to see Davos’ little unmarked ship appear on the horizon.</p><p>Davos nodded his head, a smile playing on his lips. “I didn’t want to risk the iciest winds, either. Babes are quite fragile, even those of sailors and lords.”</p><p>Obviously, he’d seen how Stannis’ gaze strayed to the bundle in his arms. Turning it, he revealed a small face topped by thick dark hair, blue eyes staring blearily up at Stannis out of a nest of cloth.</p><p>“He’s a boy,” Davos said.</p><p>There was a sudden pressure in Stannis’ throat which snuffed every word he wanted to say. After months of worrying, it seemed unreal for Davos and the child to stand right in front of him and it threatened to finally do what the fear had never managed, almost making his knees buckle. He could only mutely nod his head.</p><p>“Do we have a blanket? I had a boat where he could sleep under the deck, but we walked here in the rain and I’m worried he might catch a cold.”</p><p>Stannis glanced around the room. His study was a few doors down from his sleeping chambers, but a thick woollen curtain hung before the window and he decided his son would not be wet a moment longer than he needed to be. He strode over to the window and, with a resolute movement, tore the curtain off the bar.</p><p>Davos stared at him and then laughed.</p><p>“That will do,” he said, taking the curtain from Stannis.</p><p>“You should sit by the fire. You are wet, too,” Stannis managed, as he watched Davos kneel on the floor and unwrap their child, who by all accounts seemed to be a healthy boy with all limbs in place. He squawked after being exposed to the air, but calmed quickly when Davos wrapped him in the curtain. “How are you? After giving birth...”</p><p>“It was a long day and night, but nothing first-time fathers and mothers don’t often experience, I’ve been told,” Davos said, looking up at him. “After a few days, I could walk again.”</p><p>Stannis wished he could have been there, even knowing that should Davos have given birth in this very castle, he still wouldn’t have been allowed in the room.</p><p>“Here, would you hold him for a moment?”</p><p>Without waiting for an answer, Davos placed the child in Stannis’ arms. He clasped his son firmly by instinct, even though his mouth was open for protest born of a sudden, irrational fear. How hard could it be to hold a tiny child who could hardly even struggle if it wanted? But a lord usually had little to do with his sons until they were ready to learn of war, four or five at the youngest, and no one had ever taught him how to handle a babe. Yet, as the little boy looked curiously up at him Stannis could not but hold him tight against his chest, surprised and secretly pleased that he had not started wailing the moment Davos had handed him over.</p><p>Davos pulled his wet cloak over his head.</p><p>“My task went well enough,” he said, muffled through cloth.  “I can say more for you and the king tomorrow, but I got the messages to everybody the Master of Whisperers wanted to contact. As he asked, I let myself be seen delivering the words to some and brought them to others in secret.” </p><p>“Good,” Stannis said, barely remembering there had been a reason for all this suffering. He tried to dredge up a more helpful answer instead of alternating between looking at the child and Davos. “We think the Targaryen who were still holed up in Westeros may have gone that way. We need all the ears and eyes there are.”</p><p>“I see. Well, then at least my purpose was sound,” Davos said, pulling the tie out of his wet hair and shaking it out before he hid a yawn in the crook of his arm. Now that he stood in the light of the fire, he looked tired. “The king gave me an order, so I listened, but sometimes I wish I had sailed back before the winter, when I first started to suspect I was with child.”</p><p>“I wish you had, too,” Stannis answered, relieved that Davos would speak of it so openly. “I contemplated fetching you, but I didn’t know where you were.”</p><p>“It was good you didn’t. The Baratheons don’t only have friends in the Free Cities and I don’t rightly trust everybody Varys wanted me to visit. News of our wedding hadn’t made it there, so I told them my child was a pirate’s bastard. It seemed the smart thing to do.”</p><p>Stannis frowned at the thought that Davos may have been in danger for the machinations of the court.</p><p>“My brother insisted on adopting half the dragon’s den. It was a foolish choice.”</p><p>“I have seen the Spider’s contacts, so I must believe he is good at what he does, for he has many and they seem loyal. But if they are, I think they are loyal to him, not a young king across the sea they’ve never met,” Davos said thoughtfully. “Though it is said one best not speak of such things within the Red Keep’s walls...”</p><p>Stannis gave a firm nod. “Later,” he said. Some place where there were fewer <i>little birds</i> around. “We have other things to discuss. You haven’t told me the babe’s name yet.”</p><p>“He doesn’t have one,” Davos said with a shrug. “Had he been sickly, I may have given him one so he didn’t have to die without it, but as it was, I figured I would wait until we met again, my lord.”</p><p>“But you can’t have called him ‘boy’ for weeks?” Stannis asked, looking down at the babe’s face. He was young, yes, but by Stannis’ accounts he had to be at least two months old.</p><p>“No,” Davos admitted. “A name came to me, seeing how big and strong for a babe he was and how well he withstood the cold winds at sea. I don’t think it’s a name for a lord, though.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“Joramun,” Davos said, stepping up to Stannis’ side.</p><p>“Named after whom?” Stannis asked.</p><p>It had to be someone to make the name unfit for higher purposes in Davos’ eyes. It sounded not wholly unfamiliar, but he could not place it.</p><p>“Someone from a story my first captain, Roro Uhoris, used to tell me. He often turned us to sail beyond the Wall to trade weapons with the wildlings. The Night’s Watch killed him for it eventually. However, he’d gotten away with it for some time and he’d learned the stories of the North. Apparently, there was a King-Beyond-The-Wall of such a name who helped Brandon the Breaker defeat the Night’s King.”</p><p>“Yes, I think I have read that in some of the histories,” Stannis said thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he said to have had a magic horn that could wake giants?”</p><p>“The Horn of Winter,” Davos answered with a nod.</p><p>Stannis shifted the babe in his arms. Joramun was no name the Baratheons or any noble family he knew had ever passed on, Davos was right about that, and one did not usually call back to wildlings when honouring a child with a known name. Still, Davos’ reasoning for it wasn’t bad and he could tell from the way he spoke that Davos had gotten a little attached to it.</p><p>“A King-Beyond-The-Wall is no nobleman, but neither are you,” Stannis said. “I think he shall be Joramun.”</p><p>The answer brought him a surprised smile.</p><p>“If you think so, my lord.”</p><p>Davos leaned his head against Stannis’ shoulder and Stannis felt warmth bloom in his chest despite Davos’ wet hair staining his shirt with rain water.</p><p>“Joramun Baratheon, the heir to Dragonstone,” he murmured to himself.</p><p>“Dragonstone?” Davos asked, glancing up. “The Targaryen stronghold?”</p><p>How odd to think Davos didn’t know – they had been parted maybe eleven months, but those had changed both their lives around so much. There was much they still had to speak of. However, this particular frustration which had set him so sharply at odds with his brother didn’t even bother him right now.</p><p>“I will tell you in the morning. You must be tired and cold besides. We should retire. Your chambers aren’t prepared, though. You could come to mine...”</p><p>Stannis secretly hoped for it. The few nights they had spent as married men, Davos had always followed him to bed as if it was the most natural thing and he supposed for someone of Davos’ station, it was. There weren’t even enough rooms in the sort of houses he had grown up in to think of separating the spouses. Stannis had expected to find such constant presence in the night an imposition, but in fact had very much liked him there and not for just the reasons that a young man might be expected to enjoy having his spouse at hand.</p><p>“Gladly,” Davos said.</p><p>Stannis handed Davos the child, though somewhat reluctantly, unsure when he would hold him again. There was no reason for him to bother the babe, in truth. His mother had always shooed him and Robert away from little Renly, saying young children needed rest and quiet.</p><p>“Can Joramun sleep in the bed with us? I want to hear him if he needs to be fed and I guess there’s nowhere else in your room to put him.”</p><p>“Yes, that makes sense. I will find a wet nurse tomorrow,” Stannis said. It was not difficult for a lord within a castle as big as this with plenty of servants. </p><p>“Why? I’ve no trouble feeding the child,” Davos answered, following Stannis out of the door after Stannis had extinguished the candles. “Or am I to sail away again?”</p><p>“No,” Stannis said, perhaps a bit too forcefully. “Not yet, I mean.  Not so far. Not for a while.”</p><p>It was foolish not to send his smuggler to do what he did best, but Stannis knew he could not, for at least the next few months, chance losing Davos in some far-away city where his unknown corpse might be thrown in the ditch with the refuse, or on the winter sea.</p><p>“I’m glad,” Davos said. “I’m sure I will be sailing a few days here or there, but we haven’t seen each other for so long. It would be a shame to separate again. We were barely married.”</p><p>Stannis’ stomach fluttered. He agreed with a murmur. </p><p>Joramun laid on the blanket as Davos and Stannis stripped down. Davos unwrapped him from the curtain so he was only left in his swaddling clothes, as the room was warm with a fire. They would have to find some proper clothing for their son.</p><p><i>Our son.</i> It still seemed unreal when Stannis had almost convinced himself the small life had been wiped out alongside his father. Stannis didn’t know how to tend to him and it was clear that what little he did expect were not Davos’ ideas on the matter, such as getting a wet nurse. It didn’t seem like Davos was unhappy, though. He playfully waved Stannis over to the bed.</p><p>Joramun lay between them, his tiny fists on the pillow next to his head. Stannis saw a lot of himself in his face, from the stern set of his brows to the shape of his jaw and ears. Baratheon blood had always run strong, but he hoped that in time, as Joramun grew, a little of his other father would start to show.</p><p>“Sometimes, I was worried we would not make it,” Davos admitted, unprompted, into the silence. “I have sailed in autumn and winter before, countless times, so I hoped I wasn’t reckless, but when the waves rattled us through the storms, I can’t say I didn’t curse myself. It’s usually just me or a small crew who knew what they signed up for. Our babe didn’t ask to be dragged across the Narrow Sea.”</p><p>“I know you’re a good sailor, but I also know that sometimes doesn’t matter and I…” Stannis bit his tongue. “But you made it here. There’s no reason for us to keep worrying about that journey.”</p><p>“You’re right,” Davos said, stretching out his arm under Joramun’s feet to grasp Stannis’ elbow, a comforting touch. “I missed you, my lord.” His grip grew a little tighter. “You know, there were some easier times on the sea, too, especially when we were passing south by the Stepstones. Joramun liked the sun on the water and the gulls. I thought that it would be nice to set out on a warm day with both of you. We can take turns tending to the babe and the ship.”</p><p>Davos seemed to have a trust in Stannis around their child that Stannis thoroughly lacked. Still, Joramun would be safe as anywhere in a calm bay with the two of them and apparently Davos planned to afford him the opportunity to dote on the babe again. If that, too, was something Davos had other expectations for than Stannis, who’d figured he would have to leave the rearing of the babe to servants as he’d always known it to be done, Stannis would happily adjust.</p><p>He could only nod his head, still a little overwhelmed, but Davos smiled at that and Stannis knew, somehow, he understood more words than he had said. Looking at the joy on Davos’ face he felt suddenly hopeful that their marriage might indeed turn out to be a love marriage, after all.</p>
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